Why does everyone need an SUV?

Lamborghini is a motoring icon, famed for designing extravagant, powerful, crazy-fast supercars for over 50 years.

Yesterday, this illustrious brand finally revealed it’s newest model to the world. A model that had been speculated about for a decade. Disguised prototypes had been spied testing at places like the Nürburgring for years, but now the time had come to make it official.

At a lavish press event, the cloaks were removed amidst a sea of flashing lights, and there it was, The Urus, Lamborghini’s first SUV*.

What a Lamborghini should look like

People were aghast, some cried tears of terror, others quietly vomited into their fine Italian silk hankies.

Not only were the aesthetics of the Uterus, sorry, Urus so utterly appalling, but the disgust was more about the fact that this new model represents everything Lamborghini isn’t. It’s not pretty, it’s eye catching, but for all the wrong reasons, and it most certainly isn’t a supercar.

Lamborghini can’t really be blamed for building the Uranus, sorry, Urus, they are simply bowing to market demands. They’re actually quite late to the party. Another Italian sportscar manufacturer, Maserati, released their SUV, the Levante, nearly two years ago, and of course, Porsche, they pissed off the motoring world 15 years ago when it released the devastatingly ugly Cayenne.

The vomit-inducing Porsche Cayenne

Porsche released the Cayenne for the same reason Lamborghini has brought us the Urus, market demand.

People are tripping over themselves for SUVs. Whether it be the rich or not-so rich, everyone wants a car with raised ride-height and flexed muscles.

Why though, what is the mass appeal of a big, pseudo off-road car over a normal, saloon, hatchback or estate?

There’s plenty of debate as to where this mass-appeal SUV craze started, but I’m going to lay blame on Toyota with the RAV4, which was released in 1994 and still produced to this day.

The RAV4 is essentially a Toyota Corolla with raised ride height; and styled to mimic their off-road behemoth, the Landcruiser.

The Toyota RAV4, transported off-road by a Landcruiser for the purposes of this photo /s

The biggest difference between the Landcruiser and the RAV4 however, apart from size, is that the RAV4 is not a very good off-road car, actually, that’s putting it politely. It’s a terrible off-road car. Especially when you consider the fact that most of them are front-wheel drive.

Not that that mattered, because the RAV4 has been a huge sales success, and anyone who bought one never intended on taking it off-road in the first place.

Soon, every manufacturer followed suit, and now everyone from Alfa Romeo to Volkswagen make some form of SUV/Crossover-thing.

I can’t blame the manufacturers though, they are simply following the demand, but where has this demand stemmed from?

What they can do, but will rarely be called to do

Is it the world of celebrity? Most celebrites claim to drive a Prius, but every Paparazzi shot seems to show film stars and musicians jumping out of SUVs, usually Range Rovers.

I’m sure that’s part of the appeal for some. For others it’s likely the false idea that for some reason a bigger car is a safer, but for most I imagine, it’s probably a case of size matters.

Bigger is better, and subconsciously, people love to feel like they are lording it over others.

The saddest part is, the bigger the car, the heavier the car. The heavier the car, the harder the engine must work and therefore the more fuel it must burn. It’s a fact.

Victoria Beckham, styling consultant for the Range Rover Evoque, I shit you not.

So maybe the manufacturers are to blame. If they stop building them, then people won’t be able to buy them, but while people keep buying them in the numbers they do, they’ll keep churning them out.

Porsche and Lamborghini say the sales of their hideous SUVs help fund the development of their sportscars, so, every cloud I suppose.

That’s all well and good, until you start hearing the rumours that Ferrari have an SUV in the pipeline…..someone check my pulse.

-John Quinn – @JohnnyQ86

*Well, technically it’s not the first, that was the LM002, but that was ludicrous, so well brush over that.